Study Colonial Society and the American Revolution with 12 free online flashcards. Review key terms, definitions, and concepts with this interactive flashcard deck.
What did Virginia’s House of Burgesses establish?
Virginia’s House of Burgesses, first convened in 1619, established an important tradition of representative colonial government, although participation was mainly restricted to propertied white men.
How did the three colonial regions differ economically?
New England emphasized small farms, fishing, shipbuilding, timber, and coastal trade; the Middle Colonies emphasized grain, commerce, and artisans; the Southern Colonies emphasized plantation agriculture.
What was the purpose of mercantilism?
Mercantilism directed colonial trade toward strengthening the British Empire, often requiring commerce to use English or colonial ships and British markets.
How did colonial law make slavery hereditary?
Colonial legislatures gradually created hereditary racial slavery by making African ancestry associated with permanent enslavement and defining enslaved children’s status through their mothers.
How did enslaved people resist colonial slavery?
Enslaved people resisted through preserving family and religious traditions, slowing work, escaping, negotiating, damaging property, and sometimes rebelling openly.
What was the Great Awakening?
The Great Awakening was a series of Protestant revivals during the 1730s and 1740s that emphasized emotional preaching and personal religious experience.
What did coverture mean?
Coverture placed a married woman’s legal identity largely under her husband, restricting women’s independent legal rights and property control.
What was salutary neglect?
Salutary neglect was Britain’s uneven enforcement of imperial regulations while the colonies remained loyal and commercially useful, allowing substantial local self-government.
What were major results of the French and Indian War?
The French and Indian War ended in 1763 with Britain gaining Canada and lands east of the Mississippi River, but the war left Britain deeply in debt.
What did the Royal Proclamation of 1763 restrict?
The Proclamation of 1763 restricted colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains, angering colonists who sought western land.
What did the Stamp Act tax?
The Stamp Act of 1765 imposed a direct tax on printed materials, legal documents, newspapers, and other paper products in the colonies.
What did “no taxation without representation” mean?
“No taxation without representation” expressed the colonial claim that Parliament could not tax colonists who lacked representatives in that body.